Honestly, it feels like having a smart colleague who never sleeps-cutting your search time dramatically while keeping everything accurate and relevant. Let's break down what makes it tick. First off, the semantic search is a standout; you type a natural question like 'impact of AI on climate modeling,' and it finds relevant papers even if your phrasing is off or misspelled.
Then there's the extraction magic-it yanks out methods, results, sample sizes, and p-values into neat tables you can export right away. I love the custom summaries feature, which tailors responses to your specific angle, and the brainstorming tool that suggests follow-up questions or hypotheses. Oh, and topic modeling organizes everything into themes, so no more chaotic note-taking.
In my experience, this stuff saves hours-I've seen users report 30-50% faster reviews, which adds up quick for theses or reports. Who's this for, really? Grad students grinding through lit reviews, scientists prepping grants, policy wonks building evidence-based briefs, or even market researchers needing quick insights.
My buddy in biotech used it to compile safety data from hundreds of studies for an FDA filing-turned weeks into days. It's especially handy for anyone in academia or R&D where citations are king. What sets Elicit apart from, say, Google Scholar or even ChatGPT? Unlike basic searches that dump links on you, it structures the info with extracted data and confidence ratings from the papers themselves.
No more wading through fluff; it's precise, and the free tier lets you test without commitment. I was torn between it and traditional databases at first, but the AI extraction won me over-feels more intuitive, you know? Sure, it's not perfect. The focus is laser-sharp on peer-reviewed stuff, so if you're after news or blogs, look elsewhere.
And while collaboration is coming, right now it's solo mode. But honestly, for pure research efficiency, it's pretty darn good. If you're tired of research drudgery, jump in-the free plan's generous, and upgrades are affordable. Give it a whirl; you might just wonder how you managed without it. (Word count: 378)
